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Margarete's Rose

Written by James Copley

"Do you mind moving?" Hans asked without taking his eye away from the surveyor's transit. The lenses for the transit were hand ground to precise specification in a shop in Amsterdam. The brass fittings were made by an artisan who was otherwise hand-cutting clock gears. The precision arcs and screws came from a Grantville machine shop. The whole thing, plumb bob, brass-inlaid hardwood tripod, transit, bubble levels, screws and everything else was assembled into a shiny thing of beauty. Up-time it would have been on display in a glass case in the home office, not out in the field getting dirty.

It looked expensive, as well it should.

The horse did not move but neither did Hans' head. "Sir, I can't see the target with your horse there."

There was no answer or movement. Finally Hans looked up at whoever was keeping him from his work and started to unleash the colorful American vocabulary he learned along with the new civil engineering program at the university in Magdeburg. "What the . . ." The abusive words died in his throat.

Oops . . .

Love at first sight might well be a cliché. But lust at first sight certainly isn't, as Hans suddenly discovered. He stared back at the young woman who sat atop the horse in question.

She was not the most beautiful he had ever seen, still more of a girl than a woman. Maybe it was chemistry, maybe it was perspective, and maybe it was fate, karma, destiny, or the hands of the old pagan gods. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't had the time or energy to notice any women other than his uncle's chambermaid and Oma, the old kitchen drudge, for months on end while he was cooped up in the loft, studying.

For whatever reason, desire boiled his blood and stopped his tongue.

"What are you doing on our land?" she demanded sharply.

Hans stood there, struck dumb as a pole-axed ox and feeling like one, as he felt her eyes evaluating him. Her eyes crinkled slightly as if reacting to amusement or expressing distaste. From somewhere he got a clear impression that she was well aware of the effect she had on young men. The look of disdain which followed the crinkling of her eyes clearly seemed to say, "Keep it to yourself mister. I don't flirt with commoners. I know what that can lead to. I have no interest in marrying beneath my station, especially with the likes of you."

Hans gestured towards Hambühren. "Your land? The headman in the village said it was okay for us to survey across it."

"The village leases the rights to farm it. The land itself still belongs to my family. So I want to know what you are doing on our land." She glanced at the rifle with his equipment and the pistol on his belt. "Are you hunting?" she asked. "I think you are. The village had no right to give you leave to hunt."

Hans finally retrieved his wits from somewhere around his waist.

He signaled his two assistants to rest easy. "I'm not hunting, I'm surveying."

"You don't need a hunting rifle to survey."

"Lady . . ." Hans looked at the transit. ". . . do you know what a bandit could get for some of this stuff? Duke Georg expects me to keep it safe."

When he mentioned the duke, the girl's face turned to stone. "I think you had better come to the manor and talk to my father right this minute."

"Look, I'm busy. Can you read?" Hans was beginning to become impatient.

"Don't be insulting."

"I have a letter of authority from Duke Georg, he wants a road surveyed from Wietze to Celle, so . . ."

The girl interrupted. "There already is one! In fact it's right over there."

"It's a set of dirt ruts and mud holes. It jinks around from house to house, and twists like a drunken snake at every little patch of wheat or rye. It's only five miles from here to the edge of Celle, and the existing road is already nine miles long! That's wasteful!

"He wants a Grantville-style road, straight and hard-surfaced. Don't you want to see it?"

"A new road? Of course not!"

"I meant the letter of authority."

"No!"

Exasperated and confused, he blurted; "What's your name?"

The look of disdain return to her face, overlaid with sullen suspicion. She asked, "Why?"

"Well, I am going to have to ask you to move your horse and I would like to be polite about it."

She burst out laughing.

That might be when Hans fell in love. Or it might only have been when his lust cranked up another notch.

"Dorotee von Harenberg," she answered. "My father, Otto von Harenberg, is the lord here." But in the process of answering his question she moved her horse to the side.

"Thank you. Will I be seeing you again?"

"If you are going to try building a new road across our land, without our leave, then you will most likely be seeing far more of us than you want."

"We're surveying, not building!"

She turned her horse toward the old road with an expert flick of her shapely wrist. "If you won't come to speak with my father, then needs must, my father will come speak with you . . . albeit with more force."

She twitched the reins, set the horse to a brisk walk, and glared back over her shoulder. "Good day to you, sir."

As the words she spoke slowly sank into his head, Hans realized what they might mean. "Uh oh . . ."

When her horse disappeared over the next rise, Hans shook himself to free his mind from the haze of befuddlement, then returned his attention to the transit, took the sighting, and recorded the results in his survey journal. He then signaled the crew to pound in the marker stake and return with the survey pole. He began to disassemble the transit and place it carefully in its carrying case, and began to ponder his next move.

On one hand, he had the duke's express permission to survey through this area, and no single lord, no matter how powerful, was going to be able to prevent the eventual construction of the road if the duke decided to force the issue.

But that wasn't his primary concern.

While the letter, in theory, protected him from prosecution, it wouldn't prevent the lord from making the decision to punish the messenger, and without Hans' mercenary escort, there was really no one to keep the lord from doing just that. There was little chance of the lord coming to any grief about it either.

It had clearly been a mistake to tell his escort—after having erroneously determined from the headman in the village that no protest would be made about the survey—to stay in the village and procure supplies for the next leg of the journey and then catch up, while Hans continued to work.

Since noon he had finished surveying another mile past the edge of the village. They were making good time, barring a few false starts.

But his bodyguards were overdue. . . .

He and his assistants had two revolvers and a rifle between them, but he hoped the escort would arrive before the girl brought her father. A couple more people on his side of the ledger would make him feel better.

Besides, he was not comfortable with the idea of getting into a shooting match unless he had no other choice, especially with the local authorities.

He was still standing there, contemplating the new situation as his two assistants, Chaim and Andrew, trudged up next to him.

When he didn't seem to notice them standing there, they smirked at each other.

"Ahem?" Chaim finally cleared his throat.

Hans didn't bother looking at the two foreign adventurers when he replied to the verbal nudge. "Andrew, go see if you can find Ebert and his partner. They should have been here by now. Chaim, we might have a problem. If we end up with company before the others get back, just take what equipment you've got strapped to the horse and head for the village. Keep your head down and stay out of trouble."

From what little he had learned of his assistant's past, Chaim was good at keeping his head down. According to Andrew, Chaim hadn't even revealed his true name until well after arriving in Grantville.

They went back to work, but Hans' mind kept wandering and wondering.

****

The church bells in the village rang sechs just as the focus of his mind rode toward him. Three armed men on horseback, followed by a pack of dogs straining at the leads held by two more men accompanied her. Hans glanced toward the village, hoping to see Andrew and his returning escort.

The men and the girl slowed to a halt.

The three men carried wheel-lock pistols and hunting muskets. They were well-dressed, with tall riding boots and buff coats. The quality of their clothing varied somewhat, and one of them had the air of hand-me-downs that comes with clothes which are not quite the right size for the person wearing them but would have been a perfect fit for the person wearing the newest outfit.

The best dressed of the lot said to Dorotee, "Child, he doesn't look like a poacher."

"Father, he's on our land, with a hunting rifle, without your leave. I suggested he come to the manor and he refused. Sounds like a likely poacher to me."

"You said he claims to have a letter from Duke Georg?"

"That's what he claimed. I never saw it."

Hans wondered when they were going to stop talking about him like he wasn't there.

"You, boy! You say Duke Georg gave you a letter of authorization?"

"Yes."

Dorotee's father rode close enough that he could boot Hans in the face if he so desired. "That is 'yes, mein Herr' from the likes of you! Give it here!"

Hans did.

The older man looked at the seals and then slowly read the letter. "Humph! It says here that you are surveying for a new road for the duke. Young man, this is a blatant forgery. The duke would never presume to do such a thing without first informing me and my peers of his intent. I think my daughter is right.

"Regardless, he is not due at Parliament till next month, so you can be sure I will investigate these claims of yours with him personally before he departs.

"Hermann, lock this fellow up until I get to the bottom of this."

Hans felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. It seemed his escort would not be arriving in time after all.

He started as the lord's men dismounted and moved towards his precious transit. "Hey, what are you doing? That's . . ."

A final thought passed through his mind as he watched the butt of Hermann's musket, in slow motion, travel inexorably toward his head.

This is going to hurt . . .

****

"Anna!"

It sounded like Duke Georg was headed for the parlor with every intention of ripping the door off.

"What have you done now?" His voice trailed off as he realized his wife was not alone.

Anna rose to greet him. Her companion rose as well. "Georg, you remember Margarete von Harenberg, don't you? She is the wife of Otto von Harenberg, with whom I believe you have been speaking."

"Speaking is not the term I would have used. Shouting, growling perhaps . . ."

Margarete stepped forward. "I must apologize for my husband's rudeness. I can hardly take him anywhere anymore."

Georg's eyebrows shot up.

Anna explained. "We've been discussing the reason they came to meet with us, dear. I'm sure that after Margarete and her husband have a moment to discuss the relevant details, things will settle down quite nicely."

Georg looked almost punch-drunk, so Anna took the opening. "Margarete, why don't you go explain the details of our discussion to your husband. We'll be along shortly."

"What is it that you have done now?" Georg whispered when Margarete left the room.

"Why, nothing harmful dear. I simply did some advance planning, is all. I merely asked the company involved in paving the docks and the manor roads to survey a new road between here and Wietze, and it happened to pass through their lands south of Hambühren. I was sure that no one of note would have objected, you see. It's only a survey party after all."

"Only a survey party?" Georg began to pace. "Why, Otto spoke as if we had sent an invading army of hunters and horses bent on trampling his holder's crops. Not a survey party.

"I can't deal with this right now, Anna! I am due at Parliament in only three weeks!" Georg continued to pace, a nervous habit gained at his residence in Magdeberg. "This could turn into a fiasco!"

Anna answered quietly, "It was only five men, dear. A surveyor, his assistants and two guards is not what I'd call an invading army."

"Two of those men were found drunk in the tavern waving pistols around! They had half the village terrified! And why were guards needed?" Georg waved his arms. "You sent heavily armed men skulking around his hunting preserve. He's calling it an invasion! And I'm not sure I blame him.

"Why were they so heavily armed if that is all they were? Every one of them had a gun or two. They had breech-loading rifles and revolvers, for goodness sake. They could have taken on a score of men and walked away unharmed!"

He glanced at the door, where Margarete had gone. "And why do you suddenly think everything is solved anyway?"

He paused, and jerked back to pacing across the room. "And how much is that survey costing?"

"You men and your bull heads! Why must everything be a fight? It's costing us very little, only one team of surveyors and their equipment.

"And don't quote me your gaggle of so called 'advisors' about 'bogs' and 'cost.' If they can't see that the future of our city balances upon its roads, then they are as pigheaded as you are! Which they are, considering it was you who put them in position as your advisors in the first place!

"I highly doubt that Herr Stearns would have objections to it, and he is more intelligent than your 'advisors' by a quite a fair margin."

Georg's face grew red at the comparison. Realizing she had perhaps stepped on a nerve with her last comment, Anna skillfully redirected his attention back to the survey party. "As to the surveyors being armed, one would think you would want them to protect the equipment from bandits. I realize that Hambühren is only three hours ride away, but considering what happened, I'm actually glad I provided those guns. With what it cost us to outfit them with modern surveying equipment, modern firearms from Suhl seemed like a very reasonable addition."

"Oh?" His forehead crinkled in thought.

"We don't want to lose the equipment, do we? Not to mention the skilled men using it."

"Well, I suppose . . . Wait a minute! You said you hired a company to do this but you keep talking like they're our men and our equipment."

"Well, yes. It is my company after all. We can do that now. The emperor's government in Magdeburg has ruled that Adel can work without losing status."

Georg put a hand to his forehead and slowly drew it down his face as hard as he could.

"Don't worry, dear. It will all work out. You'll see."

Georg gave his wife a suspicious look as she smiled a beatific smile. At a time like this there was only one thing really that a man could say. "Yes, dear."

****

Dorotee rose as the door opened for her parents. The manor had felt a bit empty without them, especially since her sister had gone to visit at their aunt's house while wedding plans were made for her cousin.

Her sister was, of course, decidedly giddy at the opportunity to assist in planning the event. Eager and willing hands begging for the chance to help seemed to pour out of the woodwork whenever a wedding was mentioned. And the experience would do her good at her own wedding whenever they managed to finish the dowry negotiations with Gottfried's family.

Her half-brother had taken to hiding at his friend Gottfried's house to avoid the sideways looks his step-mother gave him every time the word "wedding" was mentioned.

"Welcome home, Father." She strode forward to greet them as the servant took their coats.

Her father said nothing and refused to meet her gaze.

"Hello, darling," her mother said, as a servant passed by to deliver their bags to the living quarters.

Her father stomped off toward the office kept in the back of the manor.

"What happened, Mother? I take it father was not able to prevent the duke's invasion plans."

"Oh dear, is that what you thought it was? That explains why your father was growling the entire way there. How is that boy? I hope he is not too badly hurt?"

Dorotee deliberately ignored the question. "What do you mean? There were five of them and they left bits of wood stuck in the ground all over the place. It's like they are planning a city, not a road."

"Well dear, it was just a 'survey team.' Apparently they were asked to look at the possibility of a road, and that is the new method of marking surveys. This particular team was led by that young man out of Grantville who went to their 'civil engineering' school."

Dorotee bristled. "He was incredibly rude!"

"And in what way was he rude, may I ask?"

"He . . . he . . ." Dorotee's voice trailed off. In fact, she felt responsible for the young man's injury. After her parents had left, she had scampered into the carriage house to bandage the oozing gash on the back of his scalp. She had wanted to apologize but he had not woken.

"I hope that your feelings about him did not prevent you from seeing he was cared for?" Her mother's stern tone cautioned her that she was treading dangerously close to trouble. "Regardless of his transgression, he does not deserve any further mistreatment at our hands."

"Of course not, Mother. I had the kitchen send food for him as well as bandages for his wounds. I had Hermann deliver them to him." Her hands twitched at the small mistruth.

"Very well. That is enough, I hope. Though one wonders why your father had him beaten unconscious. I can't believe he was that much of a threat. There was just him after all. His companions deserted him at the very beginning, from what I hear."

Dorotee flinched guiltily as she recalled the meaty sound made when the butt stock of Hermann's musket had struck the man's head. "Hermann only struck him once, but I do wish he hadn't hit him quite so hard."

She considered again the sequence of events that led to the injury, wondering if she had truly done the right thing.

"How badly was he hurt? Your father was in such a rush to set out for the ducal palace that I had hardly a moment to assure myself that he would not bleed to death."

"Mother, I supervised the dressings myself. It was not as bad as it seemed. The wounded from the French raid at Wietze were worse."

Three years previously, she had insisted on helping when a panicked woodsman who had been shot by French troops turned up. Later, when more wounded were brought through because there was no room for them in Wietze, she had again been allowed to help.

She saw her mother looking at a spot of blood on her sleeve from bandaging the man's head. She tried to hide it. She did not want to reveal just how closely she had supervised his treatment.

"Well, all this traveling has made me hungry."

Dorotee knew well that her mother was changing the subject.

"And where is your brother? Off at Gottfried's again I presume? Will that boy never settle down?

"I wish your father would settle on a wife for him, but every time I suggest someone he just huffs and won't talk about it. Well, he's not my son, as your father has pointed out often enough; the Good Lord knows I've done the best I can by the boy. If your father won't let me help, there is nothing I can do about it." She swept up her skirts in one hand and waved at the waiting servant. "Bring some light refreshments, and fetch Dorotee's books to the parlor."

Dorotee used the distraction to slip into her room, where she quickly changed her blouse and made sure that there were no more traces of blood anywhere else.

After her mother changed out of her traveling clothes, and with the snacks and small beer delivered, it was time for Dorotee's lessons.

The servant placed her books on the small table as her mother began to question her knowledge of last week's lessons covering Latin, art, and music composition. The quizzing also included some of the up-time English literature that Grantville was publishing so much of and she and her mother were reading together.

"There is something new I want you to look at this week, Dorotee." Her mother placed a new book on the pile. It was written in English, but for some reason had Greek symbols etched upon the front.

"This is a mathematics textbook, dear."

Dorotee's eyebrows rose slightly. "Mathematics?"

"It's printed in Magdeburg and Jena. They have new schools there these days that even take women students."

"What kind of school?" Dorotee asked, picking up the proffered textbook. Her mother had instilled in her a desire to learn. Her curiosity was seemingly insatiable, and her studies were expanding her worldview well beyond that of a normal teenage girl in the northern Germanies. There was nothing in her current life that she did not want to learn more about.

Except boys. Those she felt she knew all too well.

"I want you to read from that textbook, Dorotee. I talked with one of the women on a survey team in Wietze. I want you to at least know what it is they teach girls in the day and age these Grantvillers come from."

"Yes, Mother." Dorotee was already lost in the sea of knowledge placed in her hands.

****

"Why I agreed to this I will never understand," Otto grumped as Margarete entered his office. "There is no reason I should, in fact. That man is trying to infringe upon my property rights! I should be shouting this base violation from the rooftops, so tell me again, why I am not doing exactly that!"

He glared at the subject of his ire. "Maybe this time it will make sense."

She glared right back. "You've been complaining for three years now. Everybody else is making money off Wietze but you. Here is your chance to collect a bit of the profit and all you want to do is complain about the cost and insist that they stop."

"What profit? He's cutting a swath right through the middle of some of our prime fields. You say he wants this road to be a full thirty feet across! That's ridiculous! No road needs to be any wider than a wagon."

"No one has cut anything yet. It's a survey to see if they can! And, husband, if you really feel that way about it, then I suppose we should turn down the honor of being the main resupply point for all the commerce that will soon be headed down that road.

"Have you even considered just what the implications of an up-time road ...